Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I have been writing, maybe ranting, quite a bit lately about how we no longer have a truly bi-partisan political system. I keep saying that we have a probable structural change in our political system that leaves us with rule by the elitist political class, that our two parties happily share joint-control for part-time power. What exists as a supposed two party system is really an elitist-controlled monolith! – fertile ground for our romping RINOs!

Then news jumps out of the newspapers today that illustrates how one of our parties has earned this criticism as its RINOs romp. Corporate cronyism reigns!

The WSJ Republicans and Big Business article reinforces this as it points out that the GOP is all for increasing our subsidies/exposure to the Export-Import Bank:

In the age of trillion-dollar annual deficits, Americans are looking for some sign—any sign—that Washington is serious about trimming the size of government. So here's some advice for House Republicans: Vote against the reauthorization and expansion of the Export-Import Bank on Wednesday…

No one is going to vote out a Representative for opposing subsidies for clients of General Electric. But voters and financial markets might notice and applaud that Republicans meant what they said about making hard choices. The essential tasks of a bankrupt federal government should not include subsidies for the biggest corporations.

Then, in Is a tax break just like a hated earmark?, the Miami Herald makes it obvious that Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West is wanting to bring earmarks back by calling them tax breaks. Call them what he will, these result solely in corporate cronyism at the expense of the American people and feathering of some political nests. More from the Herald:

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has teamed up with Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to propose changing the process so businesses go directly to the trade commission to seek the tariff break. Lawmakers would still have to vote on it, but they wouldn’t have the chance to pick and choose which ones to forward to the commission. DeMint argues that would get rid of the "pay-to-play racket."

"Some want to restart this part of the political favor factory and hope Americans don't notice Republicans breaking their own earmark ban, and others want to redefine earmarks to create a loophole for tariff suspensions," DeMint wrote in an op-ed for CNN.com.

Again, I don’t care what our RINOs call these maneuvers. Subsidies to corporations should not be a task of our federal government. They are blatant corporate cronyism and smell more of fascism than conservative republicanism.